Texas And Feds Agree In Principle On Medicaid Waiver

[Greenbeard]

In looking for that coveted flexibility, Texas requested a big Medicaid waiver from the feds to try something new: the “Texas Healthcare Transformation and Quality Improvement Program.” Now the signs are pointing to them getting it, perhaps as early as the end of the month:

Texas officials received a long awaited thumbs up from the federal government on a proposed overhaul of the Texas Medicaid program this week, according to a letter obtained by Kaiser Health News.

The letter, dated Sept. 14 from federal Medicaid director Cindy Mann, said her agency has “reached agreement in principle” on the Texas plan to expand Medicaid managed care across the state and create funding pools to finance hospital infrastructure and quality improvement programs.

“Based on our discussions over the past several weeks, we are pleased with the progress [and] eager to continue to work,” Mann writes in the letter to the Texas associate director for Medicaid and CHIP.

The new funding pools are essentially a workaround to keep money flowing to hospitals that would otherwise be canceled out by the managed-care expansion. Hospitals have expressed concern over whether the proposal would meet approval at the federal level.

Go get 'em, Texas!